Personal summary

I am a cognitive psychologist-turned-computer scientist. I am passionate about applying insights from the behavioural neurosciences to design digital technology that is sensitive to human limitations and biases, particularly in relation to attention and self-regulation.

Contact information

Center Left
Department of Computer Science,
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
+44 (0)7472 185588
ulriklyngs.com

Education

year what
2016 — 2020 DPhil in Computer Science, University of Oxford
2012 — 2013 MSc in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford
2011 — 2016 MA in the Study of Religion & Cognitive Psychology, Aarhus University
2007 — 2011 BA in the Study of Religion & Psychology, Aarhus University

Grants and Awards

year_begin what
2018 Best Paper Award (€500), 10th ACM Conference on Web Science, Amsterdam
2018 Student Research Competition Grant ($500), ACM CHI’18
2017 DOMUS Prize for Outstanding Research Communication (£500), Linacre College, University of Oxford
2017 Designing for Curiosity Workshop Grant (€400), ACM CHI’17
2017 Student Research Competition Grant ($500), ACM CHI’17
2013 Lienhard & Bagby Research Grant (£1,000), Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology, Uni. of Oxford

Research output

Publications

type citation
conference proceedings Lyngs, U., Lukoff, K., Slovak, P., Binns, R., Slack, A., Inzlicht, M., Kleek, M. V., Shadbolt, N. (2019). Self-Control in Cyberspace: Applying Dual Systems Theory to a Review of Digital Self-Control Tools CHI ’19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Honourable Mention
workshop paper Lyngs, U. (2019). Putting Self-Control at the Centre of Digital Wellbeing CHI’19 workshop, Designing for Digital Wellbeing
conference proceedings Binns, R., Lyngs, U., van Kleek, M., Zhao, J., Shadbolt, N. (2018). Third party tracking in the mobile ecosystem Proceedings of the 10th International ACM Web Science Conference 2018 Best Paper
conference proceedings Lyngs, U., Binns, R., van Kleek, M., Shadbolt, N. (2018). So, Tell Me What Users Want, What They Really, Really Want! CHI EA ’18 (alt.chi): Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
conference proceedings Binns, R., van Kleek, M., Veale, M., Lyngs, U., Zhao, J., Shadbolt, N. (2018). It’s Reducing a Human Being to a Percentage’: Perceptions of Justice in Algorithmic Decisions CHI ’18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
conference proceedings Lyngs, U. (2018). A Cognitive Design Space for Supporting Self-Regulation of ICT Use CHI EA ’18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
research report Zhao, J., Lyngs, U., Shadbolt, N. (2018). What privacy concerns do parents have about children’s mobile apps, and how can they stay SHARP? Research report, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Oxford
conference proceedings Lyngs, U., McKay, R. (2017). ‘It’s More Fun With My Phone’: A Replication Study of Cell Phone Presence and Task Performance Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
conference proceedings Lyngs, U. (2017). It’s More Fun With My Phone’: A Replication Study of Cell Phone Presence and Task Performance CHI EA ’17 Extended Abstracts, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems ·
workshop paper Lyngs, U. (2017). Curiosity, ICTs, and Attention Management CHI’17, Designing for Curiosity: An Interdisciplinary Workshop
journal article Lyngs, U., Cohen, E., Hattori, W., Newson, M. & Levin, D. (2016). Hearing in Colour: How Expectations Distort Perception of Skin Tone Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 42 (12), 2068-2076

Talks

year_begin what
2018 So, Tell Me What Users Want, What They Really, Really Want!, AI, Society, and the Media, BBC Radio Theatre, New Broadcasting House, London
2018 Hacking the Attention Economy, Hackathon at CodeBase, Edinburgh, organised by the UnBias project, University of Oxford
2018 Evaluating Anti-Distraction Browser Extensions for Facebook, Human Centred Computing research seminar, CS Dept., University of Oxford
2017 Ulysses in Cyberspace: How Anti-Distraction Apps Can Guide Digital Design, DOMUS Research Prize talk, Linacre College, University of Oxford
2017 ICTs and Attention Management: Evaluating the Emerging Anti-Distraction Market, 2017 Oxford Computer Science Conference, Uni. of Oxford
2017 Battle of the Social Machines: Attention Management in the Information Age, Being Responsible in Research: Opportunities and Challenges, workshop held by the Human Centred Computing Group, Uni. of Oxford
2017 Distraction and Self-Regulation in Social Machines, The Theory and Practice of Social Machines, Jesus College, University of Oxford
2017 How to Build Minimally-Distracting Technology, PubhD, science communication and pints, St Aldate’s Tavern, Oxford
2017 Attention Management in the Information Age, All-hands meeting in the SOCIAM: The Theory and Practice of Social Machines project, held in Brockenhurst, UK
2015 Religion: A Culturally Evolved Tool for Self-Control, Research meeting in the ‘Religion, Cognition and Culture’ unit at the Institute of Culture and Society, Aarhus University
2014 Fundamental Motivations and Risk-Taking: Loss Aversion in Context, 26th Annual Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference, Natal, Brazil
2012 Effort, Loss Aversion and Religion, Homo Experimentalis: Experimental Approaches in The Study of Religion, Brno, Czech Republic

Poster presentations

year_begin what
2018 What the Anti-Distraction Market Tells Us About Digital Technology and Self-Regulation, Connected Life 2018, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
2018 A Cognitive Design Space for Supporting Self-Regulation of ICT Use, 3rd Symposium on Computing and Mental Health, CHI’18, Montreal, Canada
2017 Curiosity, ICTs and Attention Management: Evaluating the Emerging Anti-Distraction Market, Designing for Curiosity. Workshop at CHI’17, Denver, Colorado
2017 Ulysses in Cyberspace: Evaluating the Anti-Distraction Market, Connected Life 2017: Digital Inequalities, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
2017 “It’s More Fun With My Phone”: A Replication Study of Cell Phone Presence and Task Performance, CogSci 2017, 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, London
2014 Wild Cooperation: Studying Real-World Reciprocity Using Couchsurfing.org, Morality: Evolutionary Origins and Cognitive Mechanisms, Central European University, Budapest
2011 Priming Effects of Religious Concepts on Moral Judgment – Between Mean Values and Variation, CogSci 2011, 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston, MA.

Teaching experience

year what
2019 Reproducible research with R Markdown
TIER Faculty Development Workshop, St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford
2013 Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology
Oxbridge International Summer School
Organised and taught a 2-week course with group and individual tutorials for students aged 15-18.
2010 — 2011 Philosophy, theory of science, and university history
Dept. for the Study of Religion, Aarhus University
Taught a weekly supplementary seminar to a class of ~20 undergraduate students.

Media coverage

year_begin what
2018 Our paper ‘Third Party Tracking in the Mobile Ecosystem’ covered in the Financial Times, BBC, The Times, Business Insider, and more

Service

year what
2018 — Steering group, Transparent Statistics in Human-Computer Interaction
2017 — Ad-hoc reviewer, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
2016 — Ad-hoc reviewer, ACM CHI Conference


Selected work experience

year what
2017 — present Web developer
SOCIAM.org, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Oxford
Built the current version of sociam.org (which archives the outputs of a 5.5 year EPSCR research endeavour involving 55+ researchers, 40+ independent projects, and 400+ publications) from scratch in Drupal 7, assisted by two summer interns. Ongoing maintenance, feature development, and content curation.
2013 — 2016 Festival Producer and Manager
Institute of Art and Ideas, London
Generated ideas and wrote programme copy for 250+ panel debates for the internationally renowned philosophy and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn; interviewed (600+) and booked (150+) world- leading thinkers, including Cory Doctorow, Aubrey de Grey, and Simon Baron-Cohen; led and managed a research team of two full-time and music team of three full-time staff.

Professional development

year_begin what
2018 Invited participant at the Global Dialogue for Happiness, World Government Summit, Dubai
2017 Leading for Impact fellowship, 4-month leadership training programme at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Technical skills

what
- Programming, data analysis and visualisation in R (tidyverse), Python, and D3.js
- Reproducible research with dynamic documents in R Markdown (bookdown, xaringan, pagedown) + LaTeX
- Web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Drupal, Hugo, blogdown, Jekyll + GitHub)

Software development

year_begin what
2019 Dashboard for visualising facebook use, developed with R, shiny, and flexdashboard, deployed on shinyapps.io
Originally developed for research study on Facebook use among Oxford University students in the autumn of 2018
2019 oxforddown, R package for writing an Oxford University thesis with R Markdown
2018 chi-proc-rmd-template and chi-ea-template, R packages for writing ACM CHI submissions with R Markdown